


Josie

by hollowbones



Category: Supernatural, Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-10
Updated: 2013-07-10
Packaged: 2017-12-18 08:53:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/877961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollowbones/pseuds/hollowbones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are places where Castiel goes when he isn't fighting or dying somewhere. This is one of those places.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Josie

There is small town in a desert whose location Castiel can never identify, despite having stood at its center and concentrated until the sound of discordant bells built so loudly in his head that his nose began to bleed. To be there is to feel that he is standing at the very edge of something disastrous and obscene, but protected on all sides by a small pocket of rock-steady calm. It is one of the places he keeps for when there is a moment to breathe, before being called away again by one sense of loyalty or another. Those calm places are fewer now, but there come new places to replace the old, like sitting next to Fred Jones as he smiles and quietly broadcasts Bach’s “Air on the G String” from his vivid memory. These are places of rest. This town, despite the feeling of oppressive doom that hovers above it, is an oasis.

Angels are drawn here. It is dangerous for them, but they come. There is an old woman with a small, cluttered home around which angels gather for reasons unknown to them. She is a beacon for them; she is the only way to find this place, and she is the only one who can see or speak to them. She is coarse and strange, but Castiel and his brothers and sisters find her intensely comforting, and he has seen as many as fifty angels at a time spread over the thin brown grass of her lawn, standing with their eyes closed and their faces tilted toward the room in which she sleeps, because none wished to wake her early. 

Castiel must time his visits carefully anymore. There are fewer of his siblings to avoid, and the guilt of that fact bears down on him with a constant, cumbersome weight, but still he comes to her only when it is very late and she is still awake, and watches her home for a while to be sure that there is no one else there. Then he sits with her on the faded, torn couch in her living room and they watch a poorly colored television set, usually showing a program which seems to be about American policy legislation passed thirteen years previous, and people in suits finding themselves lost down endless hallways. She will occasionally ask him to vacuum for her, a task which he finds very pleasant, or she will speak over the television noise to tell him about her visits from the others, which she calls “gossiping.” He enjoys that. He enjoys hearing the stories that they have shared with her. The guilt is blasted away by her proximity, by this unkept little old woman who somehow blares angelic peace like a newborn star, and shatters his fear and worry, and leaves him able to hear the news of his siblings without wanting either to die or to be punished more. She doesn’t know that this is her effect. She just thinks of them as friends. No one will ever tell her, certainly not Castiel. What is unknown cannot be withdrawn, and he needs this occasional solace.

He thinks he might be her favorite. He can’t say that the position doesn’t please and honor him. He knows what Dean would think of her, but he cannot judge her the same way a human would. She is a crude, poorly-made creature with a voice like pure tar, but holy things have come in stranger forms, and it has never bothered him. He speaks to her. He tells her about his life. He tells her about his confusion when Dean makes references for which Castiel has nothing to connect. She complains about young people these days, and he commiserates. It is nice to have someone understand.

When there is the rushing sound of wings, he leaves. Even in her light, he can’t let himself see another angel. It’s easier to go. If no others come, but she drifts off to sleep at the roll of names up the television screen, he will lift her small body and carry it to her bedroom. He stays, sometimes, to watch, because sleep is still fascinating, even with the amount of time he has spent among humans. But usually, he goes. The bright red beacon through the window flashes light over the wrinkled spread of her blankets, and Cas, eyes closed, draws in one last drought of whatever it is that makes her so soothing. He always tries to keep it when he leaves, but it never follows. It keeps him coming back. And that is fine. There is a place for purgatory, and there is a place for peace. He is lucky that there is such a place at all.

He leaves when she settles, with a quiet rush of wings. He never knows if he will be back.


End file.
